A Moment in Our History

B’nai Jehudah bought two acres of land in Elmwood Cemetery in 1872, and it served our needs for 47 years. By this time, Kansas City was growing south and the Congregation needed more burial space for the future.

In 1919, we paid $15,000 for a ten-acre tract of farmland on the far southern outskirts of the city for our next cemetery. Located at 69th Street and Troost Avenue, the B’nai Jehudah Rose Hill Cemetery was situated in the general area where the last skirmishes of the 1864 Civil War Battle of Westport were fought.

The Congregation financed the acquisition and development of Rose Hill through the sale of bonds to our members. The offering was for $35,000 of 5% bonds due 1940. The bonds were not fully retired until 1952 due to financial pressures caused by the great depression.

Rose Hill was dedicated October 9, 1921, and the first internment occurred the same day with more than 500 people in attendance. Joseph Liebman was a 1911 B’nai Jehudah confirmand who died fighting in France in 1918, during World War I. Liebman was initially buried at Elmwood but was moved to Rose Hill as its first internment to honor his service and sacrifice. The tall, granite monument that was placed on Private Liebman’s grave is the only one of its kind at Rose Hill. By design, all other graves are identified by flat, uniform bronze markers to this day.

Henry A. Guettel was a successful retail merchant in the area (Palace Clothing Stores) and served on B’nai Jehudah’s board from 1907-1921. After his death in 1921, Mrs. Martha Guettel provided a generous gift to construct a chapel at Rose Hill that was named the Henry A. Guettel Memorial Chapel. It had seating for 50 people and eight crypts exclusively for members of the Guettel family. The chapel was regularly used for funeral services until the completion of the Rose Hill Mausoleum with its own chapel. Henry and five other members of the Guettel family are now entombed in room N of the Rose Hill Mausoleum.

The Rose Hill Mausoleum was built and initially operated as a privately owned enterprise headed by Herbert M. Woolf, a merchant (Woolf Brothers) and B’nai Jehudah member. Woolf and other Temple members funded the mausoleum corporation in 1931, and it was dedicated in late 1932. Under its agreement with B’nai Jehudah, the corporation had rights to sell the 432 crypts and 50 niches until July 1, 1942. By 1941, the mausoleum corporation had sold only about half of the spaces, was without liquid assets and had unpaid liabilities of $22,783. B’nai Jehudah took over management of the mausoleum and assumed its liabilities. Seventy-two niches were added in 1963. Retired B’nai Jehudah Rabbi Samuel Mayerberg was interned in the mausoleum in 1964.

When B’nai Jehudah was searching for a new temple site in the 1950s, it chose land just to the west of Rose Hill Cemetery. This contiguous location proved convenient during the years that the Congregation was located at 69th and Holmes, 1957-2003.

In 1961, Rabbi William Silverman initiated an annual memorial service at Rose Hill that continues to this day on the Sunday afternoon during the high holidays. Normally held in the mausoleum chapel, the memorial service was held outdoors in 2020, due to social distancing mandates related to the Coronavirus pandemic.

In 2015, we learned that Rose Hill was one of seven community beneficiaries of a generous endowment fund created by the late Christa Louis. Christa and her husband Stanley were the previous owners of Louis Memorial Chapel, which has served the Jewish community with dignity for decades. Their gift provides a significant perpetual income to assist in maintaining Rose Hill to the highest standards.

The B’nai Jehudah Cemetery Committee has used the Louis endowment support and other funds to improve and beautify Rose Hill over the past few years. Recent improvements include a new western fence, road resurfacing, a new roof and power washing of the mausoleum, refurbishing the original entrance gates, tree trimming and new gardens and plantings.

The Congregation maintains a perpetual care fund for Rose Hill and a portion of all grave sales are committed to this fund.

At this writing in early 2021, Rose Hill is located at at 6940 Troost Ave. Kansas City, MO 64131, and has 1,640 available gravesites that should meet demand for the next 30 years.

(Adapted from Roots In A Moving Stream by Frank Adler, z”l)
February 5, 2021
Photo Captions: Chapel and exterior of the Rose Hill Mausoleum.

After 20 years in the downtown Oak Street Temple, B’nai Jehudah was exploring a new home in 1905. Kansas City was growing and land south of 31st Street was being developed as a neighborhood of fine homes. The Congregation had about 200 member families and approved a plan to construct its third building. B’nai Jehudah sold the Oak Street Temple for $75,000 in 1906 and rented back from the new owner until a new temple could be completed.

The new location was a site at the southeast corner of Linwood Boulevard and Flora Avenue. The land was purchased in 1906, for $16,000 from Colonel Thomas H. Swope who earlier donated the land for Kansas City’s Swope Park. An architect and members of the building committee visited newly built temples in St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Detroit and Cleveland for design ideas. The membership approved a design of “pure classic style, following the examples and proportions of the Pompeian Doric” and ground was broken on May 13, 1907.

The most distinguishing and highly prized feature of the Linwood Boulevard Temple was its 20 stained glass windows by artist John La Farge. He was renowned for his “Battle Window” at Harvard University and the “Peacock Window” now held in the collection of the Worcester (MA) Art Museum. B’nai Jehudah’s commission is believed to have been the only one La Farge accepted for a Jewish house of worship. The temple’s windows typified ten periods in Jewish history and cost a total of $6,000. Sisterhood agreed to assume responsibility for a substantial portion of the building’s furnishings so that the windows could be acquired within budget. Four of the La Farge windows were reinstalled at B’nai Jehudah’s current building on Nall Avenue with the 2019 renovation. One is integrated in the Menorah Medical Center chapel.

The Linwood Boulevard Temple represented a total investment of $140,000. The pipe organ and Ner Tamid from Oak Street were moved to the new temple. The old ark was donated to a Jewish congregation on Admiral Boulevard and Tracy Avenue, a forerunner of the present Congregation BIAV. Words from the Book of Isaiah were engraved in stone over the portals of the temple: “My house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples.”

The congregation and guests crowded the new temple for two services of dedication on Friday evening and Saturday morning, September 11 and 12, 1908. The dedication was front-page news in the September 12 Kansas City Times: “Many who could not gain entrance stood on the broad steps and on the sidewalk to catch the strains of the anthems rendered by a choir and chorus…The interior of the temple shone from hundreds of electric light bulbs which studded the paneled ceiling.”

All of B’nai Jehudah’s former rabbis who were still living participated in the dedication.

The convenience and modernity of the Linwood Boulevard Temple created an immediate upsurge in membership and participation. By June 1909, membership had grown to 300 families. Attendance at Friday night Shabbat services averaged 250 and was 100 on Saturday mornings.

The I.E. Bernheimer Memorial annex was built in 1921. This two-story addition contained a meeting room with stage and balcony, classrooms and a library. The Bernheimer family donated about half of the cost.

The Linwood Boulevard Temple was our home for nearly five decades until we moved south to 69th and Holmes in 1957.

Adapted from Roots In A Moving Stream by Frank Adler, z”l
January 22, 2021
Photo: The Linwood Boulevard Temple

At this writing in early 2021, B’nai Jehudah’s current and incoming President are both women, but it wasn’t always this way.

Reflecting the times, B’nai Jehudah’s founders and early leaders were men. The suffrage movement wasn’t successful in Missouri until 1919, and the 19th Amendment to the Constitution wasn’t passed until the following year. For decades, congregational memberships for couples were held in the names of male members.

Rabbi Samuel Mayerberg successfully sponsored a Temple by-laws amendment in 1929 that reserved two board trustee positions for women. The first two to serve were Mrs. Alvin Lorie and Mrs. Meyer Shane. It took nearly another 50 years until Lorraine Stiffelman was elected as our first female President in 1978.  She was followed by Louise Garfinkle and Donna Thalblum.

Despite this societal bias, the women of the congregation had the ability and desire to lead and serve in a meaningful capacity from the very beginning. The Hebrew Ladies Relief Society was founded as a B’nai Jehudah auxiliary in 1870, and supported both the congregation and the less fortunate of Kansas City. It was the first Jewish charity in the community. In 1895, the Kansas City Section, National Council of Jewish Women was founded and did much of the work of the earlier Relief Society. Most of the early local NCJW members were affiliated with B’nai Jehudah.

The Temple Sisterhood was organized in 1906, with 75 charter members and Anna Lyon as its first President. Within two years, its membership reached 260 and included most women of the congregation. Much of Sisterhood’s initial success and its sustained progress during its first 20 years are credited to Cornelia Mayer, the wife of B’nai Jehudah’s Rabbi Harry Mayer. Mrs. Mayer led Sisterhood from 1907-1922, and was its honorary President for another five years after that.

Sisterhood’s early activities included organizing and sponsoring Seder and Chanukah festivals for children. In 1908, B’nai Jehudah moved into its new Linwood Boulevard Temple and Sisterhood completely furnished the Religious School rooms. This support helped make it possible for the congregation to commission the Lafarge stained glass windows, several of which are still in use in our present building.

During World War I, Sisterhood directed nearly half of its income to support French wounded, soldier’s welfare and Jewish relief.

Profits from the Judaica Shop (also known as the Gift Shop), operated for decades by Sisterhood, support B’nai Jehudah activities and programming to this day. From its inception, Sisterhood has provided its members with opportunities for social connection and leadership roles as well as crucial financial support to the Congregation.

Adapted from Roots In A Moving Stream by Frank Adler, z”l
January 8, 2021

Following a thorough search process, Harry H. Mayer was elected B’nai Jehudah’s Rabbi in March 1899. His tenure lasted 29 years, the longest of any rabbi at that point in the Congregation’s history.

Mayer was the son of a rabbi who served a Reform congregation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for over three decades. Harry entered Hebrew Union College at the age of sixteen, completed its eight-year course in six years and graduated with honors in 1896. He spent a year of post-graduate study in Germany and served as rabbi in Little Rock Arkansas 1897 through early 1899.

Harry Mayer arrived in Kansas City as a 25 year-old bachelor with youthful high spirits and physical vigor. Alex Sachs, a congregant who passed away in 1970, recalled a memory from age ten when the newly arrived Rabbi Mayer taught him how to use boxing gloves.

Mayer boarded for some time here with the Ney family and married Cornelia Ney in 1905. Her parents were German immigrants who arrived in Kansas City in 1879 and joined B’nai Jehudah. Cornelia was active in the Congregation prior to Harry’s arrival. She founded Sisterhood, was a Sunday school teacher and was involved in charity work. At the time of their marriage, she was 38 years old and he was 31. They had a son, William, in 1906. The couple’s principal common interest was B’nai Jehudah. Rabbi and Mrs. Mayer resided with her immediate family throughout their 42 years of married life.

Rabbi Mayer’s outlook was typical of early twentieth century mainstream Reform rabbis. During his tenure, B’nai Jehudah became firmly identified with “Classical” Reform Judaism. Its emphasis on ethical principles and righteous conduct, almost to the exclusion of formal ritual observance, was a response to the materialism and religious indifference of the age. The classical Reform approach also represented a strenuous effort to achieve an American form of Judaism, divorced from old-county customs.

B’nai Jehudah became known as “The Temple” during these years to differentiate it from Kansas City’s synagogues. This moniker continued for decades until 1963 when our current organizational name, The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah, was officially adopted.

And like other Reform rabbis of the era, Mayer was not a supporter of Zionism. This perspective continued throughout his career here. At a local Zionist rally in 1918, Henrietta Szold, the founder and leader of Hadassah, spoke out against his “utterances.”

Attendance at Friday night services was strong during Mayer’s early rabbinate but tapered off over time as more families moved to new neighborhoods south of the Oak Street Temple in downtown. Saturday morning services enjoyed a growing attendance during these same years, mostly by the ladies of the Congregation. The Congregation’s new temple at Linwood Boulevard and Flora Avenue was completed in 1908 and reinvigorated attendance and membership growth.

Rabbi Mayer led humanitarian efforts here, both in the Jewish and general communities. In 1907, he founded the Kansas City Pure Milk Commission which operated under his presidency from its founding until World War I. Its mission was to assure the city an adequate supply of pasteurized milk.

Sunday School was another of Rabbi Mayer’s priorities. He worked to enrich the curriculum and raise academic standards. He started a school library and a children’s choir in 1901. The age for confirmation was gradually raised from 13 to 16 in the hope that students would gain more lasting value from it. Sunday morning services for children and their parents included lectures by the rabbi and continued from 1910-1925.

The congregation grew under Rabbi Mayer and reached about 450 members in 1924.

Mayer inspired several B’nai Jehudah confirmands to enter the rabbinate. Charles Latz, Albert Minda and Ira Sanders all entered Hebrew Union College with Rabbi Mayer’s encouragement.

In May 1925, Rabbi Mayer developed a throat ailment that prevented him from occupying the pulpit for almost one year. The Congregation hired Henry Berkowitz as assistant rabbi, the first in our history. Rabbi Berkowitz assumed full charge of the pulpit from the ailing Rabbi Mayer with the 1925 High Holy Days. Rabbi Mayer resumed his congregational work in spring 1926, his speaking voice restored. By December 1927, Rabbi Berkowitz left to assume the pulpit of Temple Beth Israel in Portland.

The same month that Rabbi Berkowitz left, B’nai Jehudah elected Harry Mayer to the position of rabbi emeritus, effective May 1, 1928. He was in his mid 50s at this time and the congregation paid him a pension for another 37 years.

Rabbi Mayer performed a life-saving mitzvah that continues to touch our Congregation to this day. He had a cousin still living in Germany during the Nazi rise to power. The German Mayers decided to send their 15 year-old-son, Ernst, to America for his own safety but he needed a sponsor. Rabbi Mayer was contacted and agreed to sponsor the teenager who arrived in Kansas City in 1937. The boy’s parents perished at Auschwitz. Ernie Mayer became a successful CPA in Kansas City and a B’nai Jehudah officer and trustee. His wife, Golda, and children Marcia Soltz, Howard Mayer and Diane Azorsky are B’nai Jehudah members. Marcia served as Sisterhood President and Howard served the Congregation as President.

Cornelia Mayer passed away in 1947 and Rabbi Mayer left Kansas City in 1950. He remarried, passed away in 1965 at the age of 91 and was buried in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.

(Adapted from Roots In A Moving Stream by Frank Adler, z”l)
December 18, 2020

B’nai Jehudah is currently engaged in its first search for a Senior Rabbi in 18 years, since Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff came home from Columbus, Ohio. While Rabbi Nemitoff gave the Congregation plenty of advance notice of his retirement plans, the current search is proving more unique than anyone could have imagined. The limits imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of technology are groundbreaking. Video chat has replaced in-person interviews so far and the search committee meetings are being held virtually. B’nai Jehudah’s rabbinic search of 1899 was different in every aspect.

Rabbi Samuel Schulman concluded his rabbinate at B’nai Jehudah December 30, 1898, before moving to a congregation in New York City. When the Congregation began looking for his replacement, the one attribute deemed most essential by B’nai Jehudah was the power of oratory.

There was no shortage of candidates for the open position. Eight applications were on hand within three days following the acceptance of Schulman’s resignation. The number soon grew to 14. Some of the applicants came forward on their own, asking to be invited to give trial sermons. Others made it known through friends that they were available as guest lecturers or indicated willingness to serve in response to a “call.”

Whereas B’nai Jehudah had trouble attracting and retaining rabbis in its early years, the strong interest in 1899 reflected the Congregation’s growth in membership and reputation.

One of B’nai Jehudah’s board trustees conceived the idea of a series of “Chautauqua Lectures” which was a thinly disguised scheme to bring in candidates for trial sermons in front of the Congregation. Four of the 14 candidates were invited to come to Kansas City. When asked, the trustee said that the rabbis who were about to speak at B’nai Jehudah were not candidates, but had “honored us by accepting invitations to deliver a series of lectures in our Chautauqua course.”

The rabbi candidates could honestly tell their congregations that they were visiting Kansas City to participate in a lecture series. But, it was much more in reality.

The election of rabbi was held on March 12, 1899, after each of the candidates had preached three sermons. The choice of the membership, by an almost unanimous vote, was Harry Hubert Mayer, a 25-year old bachelor who was then serving in his first pulpit at Little Rock, Arkansas. He was chosen on the “magnificent word paintings” in his trial sermons and the strength of his personality.

Rabbi Mayer spent the next 29 years at B’nai Jehudah, the longest tenure of any rabbi at that point in the Congregation’s history. We will learn more about him next week.

(Adapted from Roots In A Moving Stream by Frank Adler, z”l)
December 11, 2020

We lost our second rabbi in succession to Philadelphia with the departure of Rabbi Henry Berkowitz in fall 1892. The Congregation quickly began a search for a replacement and 28-year old Rabbi Samuel Schulman gave a “trial sermon” at B’nai Jehudah November 11, 1892. At the end of the service, “the congregation came forward almost in a body, both to bid him welcome and to congratulate him.” He was hired. 

B’nai Jehudah maintained its reputation as the home of great rabbis under Samuel Schulman.  His six-year stay in Kansas City was described as “a series of successes” in which he captivated the community “with the brilliance of his intellect and depth of his mentality.” 

Samuel Schulman was born in Russia and came to The United States with his family at the age of four in 1868. He began to study Talmud at age eight and was awarded a four-year scholarship to attend a Reform seminary in Berlin where he was ordained. Rabbi Schulman was the only rabbi of B’nai Jehudah since 1883 who was not ordained at Hebrew Union College. Upon his return to the U.S. in 1889, he briefly served in a temple in New York City before becoming the pioneer rabbi in Helena, Montana. 

Schulman had a rare gift of oratory and the resonance of his voice filled the Oak Street Temple sanctuary. Congregational singing at services came into vogue with the introduction of the Union Hymnal during his tenure at B’nai Jehudah. He discontinued Saturday morning children’s classes and added a full hour to the Sunday morning schedule. What had previously been termed Sabbath school became Sunday school in 1893 and enrollment was about 125 students. 

The Temple committees that had assumed responsibility for aiding underprivileged people in our community ceded these roles to community-wide organizations during the 1890s. Rabbi Schulman helped launch the Kansas City Section, National Council of Jewish Women. This charity took over the operation of the Industrial School for Girls that was still housed at B’nai Jehudah.             

Rabbi Schulman was a good community ambassador for the Congregation. In 1893, he was invited to speak at the dedication of a new orthodox synagogue that was the forerunner of Congregation Ohev Shalom. He was a frequent speaker in the liberal Protestant pulpits of the city. And on St. Patrick’s Day in 1895, he gave the principal address at a gathering of 3,000 Irish-American Catholics. He actively promoted inter-faith cooperation. 

In October 1895, B’nai Jehudah celebrated its 25th anniversary with speeches by several visiting rabbis and dignitaries. A lavish banquet was held at the Progress Club on Quality Hill and guests were attired in formal evening dress. 

 Schulman took strong stands from the pulpit. He spoke against Zionism, typical of many Reform rabbis of that era. He also argued that retail stores should be able to stay open on Sunday. He urged congregants to oppose a petition that would have introduced Bible readings in public schools here. The Kansas City Board of Education sided with the congregation and denied the petition.   

In 1898, his fifth and last year full year at B’nai Jehudah, Rabbi Schulman urged the congregation to build an even larger temple that would accommodate all the Jewish people of Kansas City on the high holy days. This aspiration was discussed for several months but was tabled following a congregational vote later that year. 

Like his two immediate predecessors, Rabbi Schulman was recruited to a Reform synagogue in the east. Temple Beth-El in New York City invited him as a guest speaker in November 1898 and he delivered the same speech that landed him the job at B’nai Jehudah. He was offered the job as Associate Rabbi of that congregation and Schulman asked for B’nai Jehudah’s release from his contract from the pulpit on Friday night November 18. The Kansas City Star reported that “the women in the congregation were nearly all weeping” after his emotional address. B’nai Jehudah acquiesced and Rabbi Schulman accepted the job in New York as Associate Rabbi. 

Samuel Schulman was promoted to Senior Rabbi of Temple Beth-El in 1903 and served as President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis 1911-13. When Temples Beth-El and Emanu-El merged in 1927, he became rabbi of the consolidated Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York, the largest Reform synagogue in the world at that time. He was rabbi emeritus from 1934 until his death in 1955 at the age of 91. 

(Adapted from Roots In A Moving Stream by Frank Adler, z”l)
December 4, 2020

In last week’s blog, we met Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, who left B’nai Jehudah for Philadelphia. As it happened, Rabbi Krauskopf’s roommate and close friend at Hebrew Union College was Henry Berkowitz of Pittsburgh, PA. Soon after their ordination in 1883, the two new Rabbis became brothers-in-law as well. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the College’s founder, officiated at the double wedding ceremony that united Krauskopf and Berkowitz’s sister, Rose; while Henry Berkowitz married Flora Brunn.

Rabbi Berkowitz’s first pulpit was Congregation Sha’arai Shomayim in Mobile, Alabama. The Mobile congregation was founded in 1844 and, like B’nai Jehudah at the time, was primarily comprised of families with German roots. The Rabbi visited Kansas City in February 1888 to perform the wedding ceremony of his brother, William Berkowitz to Emile Block. While here, he addressed the congregation at the board of trustee’s invitation. The “young Rabbi from the South” made a favorable impression and was hired to fill B’nai Jehudah’s empty pulpit. He began here May 25, 1888 and was the Congregation’s first American-born Rabbi.

One of Rabbi Berkowitz’s first efforts here was a teacher training class that he conducted during the summer of 1888. He also applied himself to forming personal relationships with the Congregation’s members, calling on them and the unaffiliated in their homes or inviting them to his study. These conversations revealed a desire for congregants to become more actively involved.

The Rabbi’s solution was to organize the L.A.C.E auxiliary society to promote Literary, Aid, Congregational Cooperation and Education. B’nai Jehudah’s board supported the plan and by the end of two months, 120 members were participating.

He also organized 17 Kansas City charities (both Jewish and general community) into a Bureau of Associated Charities. It was funded by Jackson County and Rabbi Berkowitz became its first president in 1889.

Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe accelerated in the early 1890s and the Rabbi started a community-wide “Russian Aid Committee.” Fundraising went to help settle these immigrant families in cottages at McClure Flats, a settlement near 19th and McGee Streets. The daughters of these new families were taught needlework skills at the Industrial School for Girls (later Ida M Block Industrial School) at B’nai Jehudah. A bathhouse was located in the caretaker’s home in the back of the Oak Street temple. Most of the new arrivals did not relate to Reform Judaism and joined orthodox congregations.

Rabbi Berkowitz became the first rabbi to speak from the pulpit of any Christian church in Kansas City after developing a warm friendship with Bishop B.B. Ussher of Christ Church (Reformed Episcopal). In 1889, he was a charter member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR). In June 1892, he headed Missouri’s delegation to the National Conference of Charities and Corrections in Denver.

In 1891, B’nai Jehudah renewed Rabbi Berkowitz’s contract through 1895. The next year, his brother-in-law, Rabbi Krauskopf, encouraged him to come to Philadelphia to succeed the retiring rabbi of another temple there, Congregation Rodeph Shalom. Berkowitz visited Philadelphia and was offered that pulpit. He asked B’nai Jehudah to release him from his contract, citing the potential of being able to make a greater impact in the larger city of Philadelphia. B’nai Jehudah acquiesced and his last services here were high holidays 1892.

Berkowitz continued his rabbinate with distinction in Philadelphia, serving as Rodeph Shalom’s Rabbi for 29 years. He founded the Jewish Chautauqua Society in 1893 and led its growth. Rabbi Berkowitz was an opponent of Zionism and delivered a lecture to the CCAR convention in 1899 entitled, “Why I am not a Zionist.” He signed a petition delivered to President Woodrow Wilson against supporting a Zionist state and opposing the Balfour Declaration. The petition anticipated conflicts with other inhabitants of Palestine but could not foresee Nazi atrocities and need for a Jewish home.

Rabbi Berkowitz returned to B’nai Jehudah as guest preacher on many occasions. Each time he was welcomed as a beloved rabbi.

Henry Berkowitz and his sister Rose had a lasting influence on Kansas City beyond their short years here. Their two brothers, William J. and Maurice Berkowitz, also moved to Kansas City in the 1880s and went into the printing business. The business evolved into Tension Envelope Corporation, a national leader in its industry. A Berkowitz descendent, Richard Berkley, became Kansas City’s first Jewish mayor in 1979.

For further reading on Rabbi Berkowitz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Berkowitz

(Adapted from Roots In A Moving Stream by Frank Adler, z”l)
November 27, 2020

Hebrew Union College, the oldest Jewish seminary in the United States, was founded in Cincinnati in 1875, and graduated its first rabbinical class in 1883. Prussian-born Joseph Krauskopf was one of the four members of that class and became B’nai Jehudah’s Rabbi upon ordination.

Rabbi Krauskopf was well accepted by the Congregation beginning with his first high holidays here in 1883. He strengthened the religious school curriculum and was a strong proponent of Tikkun Olam. The young Rabbi sponsored the formation of the Poor Man’s Free Labor Bureau, a nonsectarian job placement agency in the summer of 1884. The bureau secured employment for 148 out of 158 applicants in its first six weeks of operation.

B’nai Jehudah’s Oak Street temple opened in September 1885. The new building was crowded every Friday night during the fall and winter of 1885-86 as Rabbi Krauskopf gave a series of 18 lectures on “The Jews and Moors in Spain.” His sermons began to attract members of the general community to temple services. In January 1886, The American Israelite newspaper published, “…the Christians come in large numbers; often they outnumber the members on Friday evening…and there is a good sprinkling of Christians on Sabbath morning, too.”

Despite enthusiastic acceptance by the Congregation and the greater Kansas City community, Rabbi Krauskopf was deeply troubled by poor Saturday morning worship attendance. It became so acute that he even spoke from the pulpit about moving Shabbat to Sunday. The Kansas City Star devoted its entire front-page lead column the following evening to excerpts from the sermon along with the reactions of five “prominent Hebrew merchants,” all of them favorable. About half of the congregation petitioned him to begin delivering Sunday lectures.

After some months of dissension about Saturday versus Sunday worship, Rabbi Krauskopf backed down and settled on continuing Saturday Shabbat services in the name of maintaining harmony in the Congregation. B’nai Jehudah was so fond of its Rabbi that it signed him to a new, higher-paying three-year contract beyond the expiration of his term in 1887.

But Rabbi Krauskopf had other aspirations. He was offered the pulpit at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel (KI) in Philadelphia, one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the country. At the time, KI had 250 members compared to B’nai Jehudah’s membership of 100. The leadership here felt jilted after just signing the Rabbi to a new three-year contract. Following emotional exchanges and unsuccessful efforts to keep him here, Rabbi Krauskopf’s last service in Kansas City was Sukkot 1887.

The dispirited B’nai Jehudah closed its temple doors that Sukkot night and, with no Rabbi, kept them closed to worship for six months until Passover. The religious school was reorganized and opened six weeks after his departure.

In Philadelphia, Rabbi Krauskopf introduced Sunday services in addition to those on Saturday. He became a prominent leader in his city and in Reform Judaism as well as a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt. Rabbi Krauskopf was the third President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, serving in that role 1903-05. He remained the spiritual leader of Keneseth Israel until his death in 1923, a 36-year engagement.

B’nai Jehudah, ever resilient, today has a membership 25% larger than the Philadelphia congregation (source: URJ membership directory, November 18, 2020).

For further reading about Rabbi Krauskopf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Krauskopf

(Adapted from Roots In A Moving Stream by Frank Adler, z”l)
November 20, 2020

With ambitions for a larger, grander building in mind, B’nai Jehudah sold its first temple at 6th and Wyandotte in the spring of 1883 for $15,500, more than twice the cost eight years earlier. The Congregation rented back from the buyer for $66.67 per month during construction of its new Oak Street temple.

Ground for the new building was purchased at the southwest corner of 11th and Oak Streets and construction commenced before the end of 1883. Construction fell behind schedule due to a shortage of bricks resulting from a building boom in Kansas City. Money was another problem. The proceeds from the sale of the old temple, together with donations from members and a $10,000 mortgage loan from B’nai B’rith District Grand Lodge Number 2 left about $25,000 more to be raised to meet the total cost. The congregation had another successful “fair” which raised $15,000.

The new building was a significant upgrade from the Congregation’s first permanent home. The original temple was a frame structure while the Oak Street temple was built of brick on a limestone basement foundation. The new temple seated 600 worshippers on the main floor and an additional 85 in a rear gallery, nearly double the capacity of the 6th and Wyandotte building. Side galleries were added in 1890 to expand capacity by 150.

The Oak Street temple had a Moorish design with twin towers topped by onion cupolas. A special feature of the temple interior was its ark. It was part of the west wall that copied the façade of the Oak Street entrance in miniature. Departing from Jewish tradition, the Congregation’s worshippers would not face East in the direction of Jerusalem. This decision reflected B’nai Jehudah’s Reform approach.

Construction was completed in the summer of 1885 and the building was dedicated September 4 and 5 of that year. A procession of children bearing American flags began the ceremony to a packed house on Friday night. The Torah scrolls were placed in the new ark, the Ner Tamid was lit and Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the founder and leader of the Reform movement in America, gave the dedication speech.

The Congregation celebrated Saturday night at the downtown Progress Club with a five-course meal featuring California Salmon, filets of beef, multiple deserts and French coffee.

The Oak Street temple may have been designed and built for the ages, but it only served as the Congregation’s home for 23 years. B’nai Jehudah moved south to a new temple on Linwood Boulevard in 1908. The original 6th and Wyandotte building was razed after the Congregation moved out.

(Adapted from Roots In A Moving Stream by Frank Adler, z”l)
November 13, 2020

Kansas City had about 32,000 residents at the time of the Congregation’s founding in 1870. It grew to 52,000 by 1880 and mushroomed to 132,000 by 1890. Among the new residents in the early 1880s were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. 

The beginning of the great migration from Russia came in the winter of 1881-82 when a few refugees reached Kansas City in the aftermath of the pogroms that followed the assassination of Czar Alexander II. They were mostly poor, uneducated and in need of settlement assistance. 

B’nai Jehudah’s members, especially The Hebrew Ladies’ Relief Society auxiliary, helped shelter and clothe the impoverished newcomers and sought to help them secure a means of livelihood.  Those who possessed needed skills (especially in the building trades) readily found employment.   

Kansas City entered a period of renewed prosperity and many of B’nai Jehudah’s families shared in the general affluence. In the fall of 1881, 40 Temple members organized the downtown Progress Club that was to become the scene of banquets and dances for Kansas City’s Jewish  “Society.” B.A. Feineman, the Congregation’s president, became the first leader of the Progress Club that was the forerunner of Oakwood Country Club.  Most early Temple and Progress Club members were of German background in contrast to the new Russian-born immigrants. 

In 1883, B’nai Jehudah hired Joseph Krauskopf as its sixth Rabbi in 13 years. Rabbi Krauskopf was ordained that year as a member of the first graduating class from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He was among the first four American-trained rabbis. The Congregation quickly took to its young rabbi and provided him and his new bride, Rose, with “the coziest of homes, completely furnished in a most elegant manner from garret to cellar.” 

Rabbi Krauskopf preached Reform Judaism. However, he reinstituted Hebrew instruction for students in the three highest grades. Students attended on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. 

The new Rabbi’s mood was one of confidence and the membership’s matched his. The eight-year old temple at Sixth and Wyandotte was sold in 1883 in anticipation of building a larger one further south. The sale brought $15,500, more than twice the cost eight years before. The Congregation rented back from the new owner until its new building at the southwest corner of 11th and Oak was completed in 1885. 

(Adapted from Roots In A Moving Stream by Frank Adler z’l)
November 6, 2020